The Nuts and Bolts of Grant Writing

by Cynthia E. Carr

Overview

In this practical, accessible guide for students, faculty, and other university personnel, author Cynthia E. Carr shares her best practices for planning, writing, and winning research grants based on her own experience submitting more than 300 grant proposals and securing millions of dollars in awards. Insightful, innovative, and informative, the book goes beyond coverage of standard grant writing to specifically address the issues faced by the higher education community, including the university bureaucracy and how to navigate it. The Nuts and Bolts of Grant Writing covers everything from budgets to submissions and federal to foundation competitions, giving novices the opportunity to leapfrog over some of the hard lessons that most college and university grant seekers must learn from trial and error and allowing those with more experience to sharpen their skills. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781483323367
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/01/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Cynthia Carr is a former grant writer and grants administrator who has worked at a variety of colleges and universities, including a research institution, an MA institution, and two independent graduate schools. She edited and submitted over 300 grants from 2008 to 2012, resulting in $3 million in awards from such funders as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Justice, The John Templeton Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, and others.

Cynthia has a continuing interest in fundraising and university structure, both in the U.S. and internationally. As a Fulbright Specialist awardee she was invited to consult on higher education fundraising with universities in the Slovak Republic in 2013.  Her international interests dovetail with the MA in Islamic Studies she received from UCLA and her extensive travel, particularly in Pakistan and South Korea.

Pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Sociology, Cynthia is currently studying higher education finance/fundraising and organizational structure. She also continues to follow granting issues and maintains a grant blog on the Nuts&Bolts Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheNutsandBoltsofGrantWriting. Please feel free to visit and join the conversation!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to Grant Seeking
Chapter 2: Grants in the University
Chapter 3: Funders
Chapter 4: Searching
Chapter 5: Project Design
Case Study 1: Application of a Logic Model
Chapter 6: Budgeting 101
Case Study 2: Building a Federal Budget
Case Study 3: Budget Justifications and Narratives
Chapter 7: Traditional Letters of Interest (LOIs) and Proposals
Chapter 8: Grants.gov and Other Online Applications
Chapter 9: Polishing and Formatting the Grant Proposal
Chapter 10 Declines, Awards, and Grant Administration
Going Forward

Editorial Reviews

The inclusion of text about working with university-sponsored research and university relations is great. This is an important topic that, to my knowledge, has not been addressed in other grant writing books.

Karen A. Randolph

The examples, boxes, and glossaries in the proposal are excellent and provide a ‘real-life’ look at the concepts being presented.

Carol E. Gettings

Insightful, innovative, and informative! A ‘must-read’ for the novice grant writer who is looking to gain some behind-the-scenes experience. I thoroughly enjoyed this text.

Armen Shaomian

It is good, solid information, written in an understandable language. I like its honesty and straightforwardness. The author clearly knows the material and has information critical to the process of successful grant proposal writing.

Sandra Yudilevich Espinoza

At last, a book aimed at helping college faculty learn the ins and outs of obtaining grant funding. Today more than ever, faculty at all types and level of schools want and need to pursue grant money to support their research efforts; and now they have useful tool to help them get started.

Craig P. Donovan